https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/16/how-will-life-change-if-we-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels/
[I'll just add that domestic water can also be heated by simple solar
thermal or vacuum tube solar thermal devices. But, yes, moving away
from fossil fuels does not mean giving up convenience or capabilities,
but in many cases it will save you money. And you probably should start
thinking about having some personal control over your food production as
climate change and the agrifood lobby are working to make food security
more of an issue.
images and links in online article]
How Will Life Change If We Transition Away From Fossil Fuels?
May 16th, 2019 by Barry A.F.
As part of the trashing of the Green New Deal, the political right wing
has claimed the deal will essentially ruin life as we know it, ban air
travel, and even lead to cannibalism (no joke).
Let’s take a look at reality.
Today, if you want to go somewhere, you usually travel by vehicle. If
you need heat, you turn on your furnace. If you want to charge your
phone, you plug it into a power outlet, which also powers your TV,
microwave, air conditioning, and other appliances. And when you need
food, there is an entire industry dedicated to growing it. (Of course,
if you’re in the US, your right-wing government is dedicated to
bankrupting its farmers.)
In a post-carbon world, our electricity will come from different
sources. Instead of coal/oil/natural gas/hydro/nuclear, it will come
from solar/wind/hydro/batteries. You will plug your phone in to charge
exactly the same as you do today. Your TV and microwave also won’t know
the difference because when you turn them on, the voltage of the
electrons powering them are molecularly identical to those that come
from fossil fuels.
Appliances will become more efficient at doing the same job as they do
today as technology advances and governments mandate that manufacturers
sell more efficient appliances. This is not technically necessary in a
post-carbon world, but paying a bit more upfront and saving many times
that money over the life of an appliance as the upcharge is bad for
profit gouging but good for consumers and reduces the need for
generating capacity. You get to have your cake and eat it too. Soylent
Green evaded.
How you travel will change. An EV will cost you less to own if you need
one at all (let’s ignore self driving for now). If you have a home
charger, you start the day with a full tank everyday. If you don’t have
a home charger, you will probably have to charge once a week or so at a
charger. For example, Tesla’s destination chargers are meant for places
like grocery stores, malls, restaurants, etc. You plug in when you get
there, and when you leave your car is charged. Or you can use a 1000 mph
Supercharger.
You will also save money in repairs since EVs have so many fewer parts
to break. And no more oil changes. Your fuel will likely cost at least
50% less then you’re paying now. Also, you pay more upfront for the
vehicle today but in the not distant future people will pay less to buy
that EV.
And you get even more in this bargain — lack of engine noise, vastly
improved acceleration, the ability to precondition your car before you
enter it (in winter your car is warm as soon as you open the door and
the AC has pre-cooled it in the summer), no price shocks from oil’s
cyclical movements, vastly reduced air pollution leading to better human
health, reduced medical expenses, reduced mortality, and so on.
Electrification of other vehicles will benefit you as well. Beyond their
lack of pollution, electric semis will deliver products more cheaply,
meaning lower prices (assuming competition prevents businesses from
pocketing the difference). Electric motorcycles won’t wake you up at
night as they drive by your residence. Quiet electric garbage trucks can
run all night. Transportation by train will become cheaper. Farm
equipment and construction vehicles will become quieter and cheaper to
operate, also hopefully leading to lower prices.
Heating, air conditioning, and hot water will be produced by
electricity. Air conditioning is already fully electrical, but expect
efficiency to continue increasing. Heating can come from resistance heat
or heat pumps, which work in cold temperatures — they can have trouble
in the far north but geothermal and air source heat pumps are continuing
to improve (though, geothermal is a kettle of fish I won’t get into
here). Hot water can also be heated with heat pump water heaters at
200–250% efficiency, not commonly done today but units are already on
the market (though, demand has been sluggish — more awareness is needed
for more demand).
Interestingly, since about 2/3 of current energy usage is wasted in
generator and other inefficiencies we only need to replace about 1/3 of
our current usage with renewables to make everything electrical.
The end of fossil fuels will end most smog days. (Forest fires, however,
will increase in frequency from the warming we have already locked in
and infrequent events like volcano eruptions will still occur.) There
will be no more oil spills since oil will no longer need transporting.
There will be no world conflicts over oil since its value will become
nil, and that will realign the global order because no one can hold us
hostage with oil or even threaten to.
Finally, power will cost less than it does today, inflation adjusted.
So, what will be the downsides?
Today’s EVs in general have less range than gas/diesel cars, but in the
future battery technology will give us as much or even more range than
your current vehicle and may even reduce charging times to below ICE.
You can already buy EVs with up to 600 km (370 mile) range today, even
if they cost extra at the moment.
Electricity will get more complicated behind the meter. As a consumer,
you won’t notice the difference but power companies will have to predict
production (they already do this part), they will have to store some of
it in batteries, industrial users may have to deal with demand
management (which is already in use with fueled fossil power but may
need some expanding), and they will need more interconnectors for moving
bulk power from one place to another at higher volumes then we do today.
We already have this technology. It does not need inventing. This has
all been modeled and 100% renewable energy is already technically feasible.
Airplane travel on electricity is in its infancy. Research is continuing
and electric flying is already about to take off (pun intended) and we
should either find the efficiencies to make it work for long-haul
flights, alter the technology so it can run on less energy, develop
higher energy density batteries, develop biofuel replacements, or simply
offset the carbon created by carbon sequestration (bad idea) or plant trees.
Technically, we don’t even need to make buildings or appliances more
efficient, but if we need less energy, then its easier to meet our needs
with renewables since we don’t have to deploy as much of it. Increasing
the energy efficiency of buildings is a variation of making appliances
more efficient, where the upfront cost is a bit higher but saves many
times that extra cost over the life of the building. Also, more
efficient buildings means more resilience during the now more rare power
outages.
So, why does the right fear all of this? Because it’s slightly different
then business as usual — and the oil companies pay right-wing politicians.
--
Darryl McMahon
Freelance Project Manager (sustainable systems)
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